Am I the only one who feels that this thread has no more gas in the tank? It now just needs to wither and die. Here is an excerpt from a coach in the NFL on the cheating he has seen as a coach:

The leading voice in category B is John Teerlinck, a longtime NFL defensive line coach who retired in 2012 after 11 years with the Colts. In 27 total seasons in the league (four as a player, 23 on the sidelines), Teerlinck says he witnessed every sort of imaginable rules violation. Vaseline-coated jerseys? Check. Taping the practices of opposing teams? Check. Paying off players for vicious hits? Check. Deflating and inflating footballs? Check.

“Everyone—and I mean everyone—is guilty of doctoring and messing with footballs,” he says. “But the media makes a big deal out of something that’s not a big deal. At home games, I’ve seen teams take 50 footballs, put them in the sun, roll them around, scuff them up. I’ve seen kickers take 45-pound plates from the bench room, put the nose of the football through the weight and drop the ball through, just to break the nose off either end of the ball and un-stiff it. I can tell you stories about two-way glass divides where one team spies on the other. I can tell you about microphones in the visiting team’s locker room. I can tell you about guys coming in and taking pictures of what coaches write on the board. There’s no end to it.”

Comically, the text above was lifted from an article on why people hate Tom Brady.

But you know this isn't a fair assessment. Because, whether you agree with it or not, Brady and the Patriots were punished hard because of previous violations and failure to cooperate. Whether you agree with it or not is important -- and likewise, it's not about how I feel about the Pats. That's what the league said.

The Giants can't be said to have either accelerator in play, I don't think. So...lesser penalty.

But you know this isn't a fair assessment. Because, whether you agree with it or not, Brady and the Patriots were punished hard because of previous violations and failure to cooperate. Whether you agree with it or not is important -- and likewise, it's not about how I feel about the Pats. That's what the league said.

The Giants can't be said to have either accelerator in play, I don't think. So...lesser penalty.

Mara is football royalty and buddies with the commish. They didn't get the same punishment as other teams have in the past, and I'm not just talking about the Patriots. Looking at these, you can say he was a little soft on it. I took these from an article I read last night. No previous violations that I'm aware of with these teams.

–Former Browns general manager Ray Farmer was suspended four games after sending a text message to team personnel on the sideline during a game. The team was fined $250,000, but operating for a quarter of the season without the man in charge of the franchise was a much stiffer penalty than any dollar amount could present.

–The Atlanta Falcons were found guilty to have been blasting artificial crowd noise through their stadium’s speakers. For this, the NFL stripped the Falcons of a fifth-round pick and fined the team $350,000. Team president Rich McKay was suspended — albeit briefly — from his position on the competition committee.

–When the NFL determined that the Kansas City Chiefs had tampered with free agent Jeremy Maclin before signing the receiver, the league stripped the team of two draft picks — a third-rounder and a sixth-rounder — for the offense, which typically is not policed in that fashion.The Chiefs were also fined $250,000. Coach Andy Reid was fined $75,000, and general manager John Dorsey was fined $25,000.

Giants got lighter fines and they drop down in draft position. No more than 12 spots though, you don't want to punish them too much.

Kraft is more important to the NFL than probably any other owner. Jones has a Trump-like need to control everything, but that's only among the other owners -- like how he commandeered the Rams relocation process. And if Mara is perceived to be in some good ol' boys club in the league, well, OK. But Kraft runs the TV contracts negotiations. He runs their money. AND he runs (or at least used to lead) labor discussions with the Player's Association. He's their chief business man, basically. The idea that Kraft is second-class among owners, or picked on to prove a point, or somehow victimized for no good reason, is ludicrous. The NFL needs him too much.

And fudge, the NFL even helped him hide the full extent of Spygate. Remember that? They declared case closed and destroyed all the evidence? The league helped Kraft there. At the end it was a cover-up, not a witch hunt. I assume some of you will protest loudly to this, but google it first please. Here: https://www.google.com/search?q=spygate+tapes+destroyed

My question to you is do you think the giants were punished along the lines of the other teams above or do you think they got off a little lighter? I'd have to say what they did would have to be considered similar to the what the Browns did in the above examples.

My complaint with Goddell is that he's not very consistent. I also look at the way they handled the Josh Brown situation. Remember when the league wasn't going to stand for domestic violence? They were going to hand out hard suspensions? They gave him one game. They couldn't get through to the police or a get return call? Their office person used a generic comcast email account? I imagine their investigation was along the lines of the lawyer in My Cousin Vinny.

erba wrote:My question to you is do you think the giants were punished along the lines of the other teams above or do you think they got off a little lighter? I'd have to say what they did would have to be considered similar to the what the Browns did in the above examples.

I think it looks pretty ok to me. Considering: the Giants didn't gain much of a competitive advantage, they simply replaced a broken system (QB Comms) with one they weren't supposed to, for only a portion of one game, and that the league doesn't think the exercised the only potential advantage the team could have had. "One NFL source told ESPN's Adam Schefter that even though the Giants weren't communicating with Manning within 15 seconds of the play clock ending, they had the "opportunity" to do it."

The Falcons were punished more harshly, and should have been -- affecting in-game play, repeatedly, in ways nobody's allowed to.

I think the Browns were overly punished. I don't get what advantage came from what was happening. Texts? So what. Farmer could have been standing on the sideline saying the same fudge too, right, so, that one seemed like a technicality to me. (Plus, losing their GM might even help the Browns ba-zing)

erba wrote:My complaint with Goddell is that he's not very consistent. I also look at the way they handled the Josh Brown situation. Remember when the league wasn't going to stand for domestic violence? They were going to hand out hard suspensions? They gave him one game.

I agree that punishments don't seem consistent. It would be nice if there was a schedule of violations and punishments, but, there are too many variables. And as far as individuals go the players signed off on Goodell being a dictator, and remember Goodell's only job is to be the owners' stooge, so, this is what they get.

Brown should have had more games -- but it was for an incident a year old that people just found out about. And it doesn't appear as if he's even been charged with a crime, right (I googled some)? That makes him an equal piece of garbage but it's less of an offense against football, if that means anything.

Here's the difference: Goodell wants to put the best product possible on the field and maintain the league's image, because those things lead to profitability. So cheating -- and drugs is in this bucket because of what PEDs did to baseball -- gets slapped hard as hell, whereas even subhuman shitpiles like Greg Hardy get to keep playing because they're starters. Fair? No. Moral? No. But Goodell is the hired gun of the NFL money, so, his decisions are based on what's best for the money. And knowing that -- that's why he'd never put a target on Kraft or Brady's back unless he felt he had to for the greater good: they're too valuable, necessary, and marketable. But in all the cases where the Pats got slapped, he felt there was enough potential to scar the league that a slight black mark against their golden boy and favorite franchise was an acceptable loss. Because the alternative is millions thinking the game is rigged or that Super Bowls were tainted, and not spending their money with the NFL.

ESPNFL doesn't need and has never had a clean product to sell and the PED decade saved baseball after MLB cancelled the world series. See also: the WWE(F), whose total control over its product the NFL envied in its heyday and has since emulated.

Also nobody is saying any of this D-gate stuff is rational, so pointing to Kraft being the ways and means guy is no help in explaining what we all saw happen. Unless you consider that they went for Brady's head over what should have been a parking ticket for the team.

fredo wrote:they went for Brady's head over what should have been a parking ticket for the team.

Except the NFL strongly believed -- whether any of us do or not -- that Brady was directly complicit, up to and including mandating and overseeing the illegal activity, and that when confronted, he refused to cooperate. Hence individual penalties, not solely a team penalty.